If I Only Could, Be Running Up That Hill
by Terminally Ambivalent
Summary: A short one-shot focused around Claire and Sylar in the future. Very simple and to the tune of Running Up That Hill by Placebo. This can be read as romantic or non-romantic, I honestly don't know which I intended it to be. lol. Please read and review!


Okay, this is my first attempt at a 'Heroes' story so fingers crossed hopefully this won't melt anyone's brains. *glares at Sylar* Anyways, please try to listen to _"Running Up That Hill" (2007 Digital Remaster) _by Placebo. It helps the mood, ya know? Okay, well, here it is! ... Please don't die! DX

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Claire sat upon the bench, fingers slowly darting across the black and white keys of the grand piano that lay before her. _Slowly_, slowly the notes poured out, flitting and floating across the air like the silver white dust particles that dance before her vision in the thin beams of the cool spotlight trained upon her figure. Face still, calmly set in place, her skin and complexion just as young and unmarred as it was when her family still lived, her friends still breathed, her heart still cared…

So young and beautiful was she, yet what use is beauty if there is no heart beating behind it?

Still the notes danced into the air, reverberating around the room and echoing and curling themselves around the ears of the man who stood watching her quietly from the doorway.

It doesn't hurt me.

_Huh, huh, oh, oh._  
You wanna feel how it feels?

_Huh, huh, oh, oh._  
You wanna know, know that it doesn't hurt me?

_Huh, huh, oh, oh._  
You wanna hear about the deal I'm making?

_Huh, huh, oooh, oooooh._  
You *be running up that hill*  
You and me *be running up that hill*

It was true that Sylar had killed most of all that she cared about, but upon further inspection it seemed… _T__ime_ was the cruelest executioner. Silent, no warning for when it would strike, but _oh_, did it show when it arrived, making itself known through the drooping of their eyes, the lines of worry, anger, and sorrow upon their foreheads, and the rare, but still present etches of line-art printed around the corners of their mouths marking where a prolonged smile may have once lay and die in battle… like a bright red blood stain across the canvas of gray.

No one could ever say Time didn't make one hell of an entrance.

And if I only could,  
Make a deal with God,  
And get him to swap our places,  
Be running up that road,  
Be running up that hill,  
Be running up that building.  
If I only could, oh...

Worst of all though, she thought, was how you never knew when the executioner Time's scythe would fall and slit all of what was once a friend or family's being from this reality to the next. As their eyes glazed and their hides became cold with death it was as if they were falling through a veil when they slowly slackened and became boneless in her arms, a veil in which she would forever more be separated from…

A veil she would never be permitted to follow them through.

You don't want to hurt me,  
But see how deep the bullet lies.  
Unaware that I'm tearing you asunder.  
There is thunder in our hearts, baby.  
So much hate for the ones we love?  
Tell me, we both matter, don't we?

Over the years, her hate had festered, grown and thrived until one day, one day she found that it was built on pillars of salt and pillars of sand, sand being what was once the bodies of her decaying loved ones and salt being all the tears she had ever shed over them, her loses and her anger. The fire of her anger was blown out the day she realized that, and she would forever regret the day it did.

What was forever when you felt nothing? _What was forever when you could not even hate?_

You, *be running up that hill*  
You and me, *be running up that hill*  
You and me won't be unhappy.

So she moved on, living yet just as lifeless and soulless as the atoms that once played host to her friends. She learned the universe is huge, time and the Grimm Reaper were one and the same, and that she was forever more doomed to walk amongst the dead of her memories and live amongst the damned of the living.

And if I only could,  
Make a deal with God,  
And get him to swap our places,  
Be running up that road,  
Be running up that hill,  
Be running up that building,  
If I only could, oh...

She moved from one life to another, no questions no problems. Picked up her broken pieces and traveled to the next plot of land she would pretend to call home for the next duration of an 'average life span'. Now she played the piano as a form of entertainment at a fancy, high-class restaurant, never making a sound beside those that the pressing of her fingertips would coax the piano into making.

'C'mon, baby, c'mon, c'mon, darling,  
Let me steal this moment from you now.  
C'mon, angel, c'mon, c'mon, darling,  
Let's exchange

the experience, oh...'

The man stood motionless in the doorway, still silent as the graves he had sent numerous amounts of people to, countless really. His face was also calmly set in place, like placid water on a gray, chilly October day. He was watching her fixedly, she knew he was watching her fixedly, and they both fixedly carried on with what they were doing. He thought back to all the times they had encountered one another, to all the times when words were still exchanged...

He missed her voice.

And if I only could,  
Make a deal with God,  
And get him to swap our places,  
Be running up that road,  
Be running up that hill,  
With no problems.

With no problems.

"Sylar."

_'If I only could, be running up that hill.'_

_'If I only could, be running up that hill.'_

_'If I only could, be running up that hill.'_

_'If I only could, be running up that hill.'_

_'If I only could, be running up that hill.'_

_'If I only could, be running up that hill.'_

_'If I only could, be running up that hill.'_

_

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_

I hope you liked it! I tried to eliminate any grammatical or punctuational errors, but I'm a writer, not a miracle worker. lol. Please review and let me know what you think! ... Or else Sylar will eat your brains. =_=

Sylar: What? That's disgusting.


End file.
